My friend and I were having a discussion about the best way to compensate college players, and he came up with the idea of paying players based on performance, sort of how incentive laden contracts work in the NFL, with the stipulation that the players will not receive the money until they graduate or go pro. I thought his idea was awful and unrealistic, because the “student athletes” would now become paid employees of the university and we essentially would have a semi-pro league on our hands. BUT, that got me thinking about a possible solution…

The issue we have here is the balance of compensation between stars and bench-warmers, large schools and small schools, men’s sports and women’s sports (which could also very well be a legal issue), revenue-generating and non-revenue-generating sports, etc. Instead of trying to figure out that mess, let’s take the decision of compensation out of the universities’ hands.

The solution: allow the student athletes to sign endorsement deals. If a corporation is willing to pay for a player’s likeness, he deserves that money. However, the stipulation here is that all money earned by a student athlete through endorsements would have to be held in an escrow account, and the release of the money would be contingent upon the completion of the player’s eligibility or his/her declaration to go pro, whichever comes first. Now if a player is caught accepting benefits beforehand, the NCAA would not look hypocritical when laying down punishments. Student athletes get compensated, legal issues are avoided, and you won't have a bunch of teenagers running around campus with millions of dollars to blow/get into mischief with. What do you think? So crazy it just might work?

Go Blue,
Stephen Y

That's fine. It's a little paternalistic to tell the kids they can't have money until they get their degree, and that will be less effective at legitimizing the stuff under the table, because poor college kids will still want walking-around money. It's still fine.

I'm not sure why there's this widespread opposition to giving people money in exchange for services, but whatever middle ground you want to stake out that gives the kids their image rights and avoids Title IX issues is fine by me. Sign whatever you want, get whatever money you can acquire, and everything will be the same except compliance folk will have to find less mindlessly pedantic jobs. Worries about booster involvement are naïve—they're already involved.

The other major thing that the NCAA could do is get rid of their inane opposition to agents. If you're a legit agent with X number of current pro clients you can sign players regarded as prospects, and give them some advance on whatever they're going to make in the pros. (If you don't make the pros, that's just tough luck for the agent.) The NCAA doesn't even have to redirect any of the buckets of cash they're currently making to make the system

less impossible to manage

a more even playing field

fairer to the players

Yeah: a more even playing field. Right now no one is going to MAC schools over major offers, but schools willing to do under the table stuff—or just not stop it—have an advantage over schools that don't. And it's tough to figure out what the more moral position is there these days.

DL moves?

Hey Brian,

Sometimes in football, it seems that you just want to get the best guys on the field right? Do you think we might see a DL consisting of Beyer, Henry, Qwash, Black?

I would think Black could flip back out to SDE pretty easily and could fold back in to 3 tech occasionally depending on the substitution patterns. To me that gets your best pass rushers on the field more regularly and is the most likely combo to soak up OL in the run game too.

You mentioned that you expect Beyer to take Clark's job when Ryan comes back, but why not just make that switch now? Wouldn't you rather get Gordon out there with Beyer than Clark at this point?

Thanks,
Daniel

(This was sent before Clark played well against UConn.)

If Michigan was going to put out its best line for one particular play against an I-formation that might well be it, but with opponents running out all kinds of spread packages and Michigan responding by lifting their nose tackle, Black's snaps are mostly going to be spent as an interior rush-type against shotgun formations. It's probably not worth moving him midseason to get a marginal improvement. While I like what I've seen from Henry so far, there was a play against UConn where he got obliterated. (Michigan was fortunate that UConn didn't block the second level well and held the gain down.) He's a work in progress.

Meanwhile on Cam Gordon: for whatever reason they're not playing him, and it's to the point that his lack of playing time speaks to a lack of performance. Beyer's been good, but mostly as a guy with his hand in the dirt. When Beyer's been put in coverage he's shown some flaws. Gordon's not getting more time is probably just his fate at this point.

I don't get it, either. They've been giving him seemingly genuine praise for years now and when it comes down to it they just don't put him on the field.

Michigan has only offered two prospects from the 2016 class but many current high school sophomores are being evaluated by the coaches as the young high school football season gets ramped up. ATH Teryn Savage was a potential visitor for the Akron game, but luckily for the coaching staff he decided to visit Kentucky instead.

Savage is a long, lean athlete who is being looked at by several FBS schools at multiple positions including running back, wide receiver, and safety. Michigan has started building a relationship with Savage, specifically via running backs coach Fred Jackson, and while Savage doesn’t have the typical build the staff usually targets for a running back, Jackson is his main contact at this time.

I asked Savage to tell me how he saw himself as a player and he had this to say.

“I’m 6’2 and about 180 lbs. right now and the first 40 I ever ran was a barefoot 4.62. If I got timed tomorrow I’m sure I’d be in the 4.5’s. I think when coaches and fans watch me play the main thing they will see from me is my physicality. I will smack you in the mouth the whole entire game and talk smack to you while I’m doing it. (laughs) I go hard every single snap. I really think that’s what separates me from other wide receivers or safeties.”

Savage has been compared to Vernon Davis by his coaches because of his ability to stretch the field but also catch the ball in traffic. His body type is much different from Davis’s but he is utilized in many ways in the passing game for his high school team.

Savage has a top 5 that currently consists of Kentucky, Clemson, Miami, Florida and Florida State, but was quick to tell me that Michigan will be in there once he visits for a gameday experience. He also consistently hears from Nebraska, USF, Ole Miss and Georgia, along with some smaller division one schools. He specifically mentioned Michigan saying, “Man, I like Michigan a lot. Coach Jackson is a real cool dude. As soon as I met him we clicked and I also speak to Coach Hoke on certain occasions. Beside the coaching staff, the stadium is just unbelievable. I can’t believe fans pack it every weekend.”

When I asked Teryn if there were any offers he coveted more than others he mentioned Kentucky, Clemson and Michigan. He grew up a Florida fan but when he was about 10 years old he really started liking Michigan because of the legendary winged helmets. He plans to check the helmets out in person for the Minnesota game and was in Lexington this past weekend to scope out the Wildcats.

Being a North Carolina kid Savage doesn’t have a serious connection to Michigan necessarily but his step dad is childhood best friends with Jabrill Peppers’ father from where they grew up in East Orange, NJ. Savage said that he and Peppers weren’t all that close, but they do message on Twitter occasionally, although recruiting is never a topic of discussion. Savage and his family are planning on flying up to New Jersey to catch one of Jabrill’s games within the next few weeks.

Teryn and I finished our conversation with a discussion about his father who was tragically killed by a drunk driver almost a year ago. For such a young kid I was incredibly impressed with his attitude toward such an unfortunate event. This is how he spoke of the situation. “It motivated me more than it hurt. Every since it happened I’ve just busted my behind in the weight room and on the field. I’ve had to realize there’s nothing I can do about it now. He’s in a better place now and I’m just going to ball out like he always told me to and I know he will be pleased.”

It’s hard to say if Savage will ever receive a scholarship offer from the Wolverines but a relationship is being built and Michigan has been a presence in North Carolina in recent years. His interest in Michigan seems legitimate and he had good knowledge of the school, program, and history for an out of region prospect. He will be one to watch moving in to the next two recruiting cycles.

Shaun Crawford, Mini-Jabrill

A much-anticipated matchup between Cleveland.com's top-ranked Cleveland St. Edward squad and #9 Cincinnati Elder didn't live up to the hype, as St. Eds ran away with a 48-7 victory. Much of the credit for the blowout goes to 2015 commit Shaun Crawford, whose stat line looks like one posted by a certain other defensive back headed for Ann Arbor:

Yes, it appears Michigan may have the best player on the best team in Ohio, and he's only a junior. This is nice.

Jabrill Peppers, Still Jabrill

2014 commit Jabrill Peppers, meanwhile, did a little bit of everything to lead Paramus Catholic to a 35-21 victory over DePaul. Peppers rushed seven times for 41 yards, caught four passes for 49 yards and a TD, returned a kickoff for 47 yards, tallied four solo tackles, recorded three pass defenses, and returned an interception 32 yards for another TD.

I watched the UConn game with two diehards who happen to be in town from out of state. I'd spent large chunks of the past decade trying to get one of these guys to come over to watch Michigan games for the same reason he refused to do so: he experienced games on television as an emotional trial to be bested. I'm the same way, but talk only goes so far.

So there's four of us in the room when Devin Gardner takes off up the middle for a sixteen-yard touchdown on third and eleven. Michigan's up seven midway through the first quarter. No one does anything. There's no whooping or even a slight fist pump or a clap. We just stare at the television, internally relieved but marshaling our strength for the road ahead like international meth kingpins on the lamb.

It takes a special kind of paranoia to be petrified about a game like that against a team like that, but it was redeemed in full. The recent history of Michigan football* lends itself towards nuanced discussion of this particular vintage of terror, and this one was spicy and piquant with notes of Denard Robinson's role in 2009 Iowa and 2002 Utah, which ended 10-7 despite the Utah offense scraping together only 200 yards of total offense. The nose was full-bodied, redolent of 2010 Iowa, and 2010 Michigan State, and the first three quarters of 2011 Notre Dame.

The aftertaste was like filling your mouth with iron shavings and walking into a strong magnetic field.

----------------------------------------------

One of the worst things from the worst things column last week was the familiarity of all this: struggles against mediocre competition that throw a wet blanket on your season after Michigan beats Notre Dame and gets all hyped up about it. To that you can add an even darker familiarity now, one that you may have been reminded of when ABC flipped to the end of the Texas-Kansas State game just in time to see Greg Robinson do a little dance of joy.

What is Michigan doing on offense? I don't know. They come in saying they're going to manball it up; they are largely prevented from doing so by Denard Robinson. They do dump the stretch play that had been Michigan's primary way of gaining yards on the ground for five years, when they have David Molk and Patrick Omameh and Michael Schofield on the interior of the line.

Denard's gone, as are Molk and Omameh; Schofield's at right tackle, a spot that's generally less important than those guard spots on stretch plays. So of course now is the moment when Michigan turns to the stretch as their base. They suck at that, unsurprisingly. They haven't run more than five stretch plays per year since Rodriguez left.

You could see the confusion last week, when guys were leaving first level defenders with easy paths to the backfield. Those plays against Akron were shockingly bad. You have a guy between yourself and the center, you deal with him before moving to the second level. Otherwise you die. Whether the issue there was the call or the execution, the underlying symptom is the same one that plagued Michigan's defense during the Rodriguez era: never settling on who you are and being terrible at everything as a natural consequence.

I mean, how insane is it that after two years with an offensive line entirely recruited to run the stretch they install it once Kyle Kalis is the right guard?

This is the second straight year Michigan has one of the worst running games in the country papered over by the fact that its quarterback can scoot for 40 yards without breaking a sweat. Toussaint can't see what's in front of his face sometimes. Neither can the line. While Toussaint showed his ability in open space on his touchdown, Michigan found itself behind the chains far too often against a defense that had just been ripped apart by Maryland. Michigan is looking up at North Texas, Tulane, and Florida Atlantic in TFLs allowed after four games. Michigan is 118th(!!!) of 123 qualifying teams in tackles for loss allowed.

Michigan lacks an identity, and once in a while they come out doing something completely different and disastrous (3-3-5 against Purdue; under center against Iowa). In this one, Gardner's inability to throw straight makes it impossible to judge the playcalling, but more ominous than the already-plenty-ominous dropoff of Michigan's quarterback is the persistent clown show on the offensive line. Any idea that the problems may have been fluky is now gone. This is Michigan, still: looking at the quarterback as the cause of and solution to all problems.

Highlights

Awards

Brady Hoke Epic Double Point Of The Week. The only truly good things that happened in this game happened on defense and there was one incredibly critical play that turned the game around. You know what it is already; you know it's about to be featured in the double fist pump, you know that Desmond Morgan is the man who made the play.

Honorable mention: Frank Clark, for sacking people frequently. Blake Countess, for seeming to be good at coverage. Fitzgerald Toussaint, for busting a much needed 35-yard touchdown en route to a 100 yard game that means I no longer have to predict 100 yard games for Fitzgerald Toussaint every week in the game preview.

Brady Hoke Epic Double Fist-Pump Of The Week. Michigan had just failed to convert a fourth and two, looked virtually incapable of driving the field against UConn, and trailed by seven points in the fourth quarter. UConn dropped to pass; Desmond Morgan dropped into a seam route, leap, speared the ball, and returned it to the UConn eleven yard line. One play later it was tied. Huzzah, Desmond Morgan.

Honorable mention: Frank Clark crushes UConn's inept right tackle for a critical sack on UConn's final drive. Gardner actually pitches on a speed option this time.